Protests and anger over the security situation in Iraq mounted on Thursday at the site of a massive truck bombing by the Islamic State (IS) group earlier this week in Baghdad that killed scores as the death toll continued to rise and a separate attack north of Baghdad killed dozens more.
The Baghdad attack on Sunday — the deadliest attack in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion — has stoked public unrest and spurred Iraqi officials to announce a number of new security measures. However, smaller bombings and attacks have persisted in the days that followed.
Late on Thursday night an attack carried out by multiple suicide bombers and gunmen on a Shiite shrine in Balad, north of Baghdad, killed 26 and wounded 52, according to Iraqi police and hospital officials.
Earlier on Thursday, Iraqi hospital and police officials said their death toll from Sunday’s Baghdad attack now stood at 186, with about 20 people still missing, as more remains were recovered from the rubble.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they are not authorized to talk to the media.
However, Iraqi Ministry of Health media office spokesman Ahmad Roudaini said the ministry’s death toll is 292.
The discrepancies in the numbers could not immediately be reconciled. Many of those killed have had to be identified with DNA testing because their bodies were burned beyond recognition.
On Thursday evening, a crowd of angry friends and family members of the victims tried to push into one of the buildings hit in the truck bombing, but civilian volunteers held them back.
The IS suicide bomber had detonated his explosives in Baghdad’s central Karada neighborhood, outside a shopping mall in a street crammed with people preparing for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr. The area, packed with shops, cafes and restaurants, had swelled overnight with Baghdad residents eager from a respite from the daily fasting during the holy month of Ramadan.
Mustafa Hassan, one of the men gathered at the scene on Thursday, said he had volunteered to help sift through the debris after authorities failed to do so. Hassan, a young man wearing a surgical mask and gloves, held up two plastic bags that he believed contained charred human flesh.
Roudaini said the ministry continues to help transport the remains of the dead to Baghdad’s forensic lab or to the city morgue, but he said the scale of the explosion has overwhelmed the teams who normally respond to such attacks.
“Till now there are maybe still some dead under the building, we do not know,” Roudaini said.
Hours after the bombing, IS said it had targeted Shiites, whom the extremist Sunni group considers as apostates. Many of the Karada victims were Shiites, but many Sunnis and Christians were also among the dead.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese